


don't tell me (heard you twice before)

by water_poet



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Beer, Clubbing, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Drabble, F/F, Falling In Love, Girls Kissing, Hook-Up, Lesbian Helena Bertinelli, Motorcycles, Short & Sweet, Training, Trans Female Character, women love women y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25211212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/water_poet/pseuds/water_poet
Summary: If Helena was the kind of person to do normal romantic things, maybe she'd ask Dinah out for coffee. Drinks. A movie on the nice side of town.But she isn't, and she doesn't.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli & Harleen Quinzel, Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





	don't tell me (heard you twice before)

**Author's Note:**

> We. Stan. Dumbass. Lesbians. With. Motorcycles.

If Helena was the kind of person to do normal romantic things, maybe she'd ask Dinah out for coffee. Drinks. A movie on the nice side of town.  
  
But she isn't, and she doesn't.  
  
"You feel like a drive?" she asks, leaning against her motorcycle with fake nonchalance.  
  
It's not an excuse to feel Dinah's arms around her waist but she still has to bite her tongue to prevent herself from gasping when it happens.  
  
"Where are we going, Huntress?" Dinah asks, and Helena wants to hear her name on Dinah's lips a hundred more times.  
  
"Who knows, Canary? Wherever we end up," she says.  
  
Dinah leans into Helena's back, the soft curves of her body fitting perfectly into the lines of Helena's own. She tucks her chin into Helena's shoulder, her breath hot and sweet.  
  
"Just make sure you get me home by curfew, 'kay?"  
  
This side of Gotham is all electric signs and gasoline at night. The acidic air stings Helena's eyes as the motorcycle roars down the highway, blazing past yellow light as Dinah whoops for joy.  
  
Helena's heart pounds in her chest. She wonders if Dinah can feel it where her hands are pressed against her ribcage.  
  
They stop at the Park Centre. It's the bad side of town, so there are foil gum wrappers glinting in the flickering streetlight by the gutters and rude graffiti scrawled with marker on the bench they find to sit at but the stars are just barely visible out here, outside of the smog and dust of their world.  
  
"I'd like to live in the country, someday," Dinah says. Her breath curls upwards in a cloud of smoke against the stars.  
  
Helena remembers the villa outside of Florence where she grew up, the cobblestone path that led down to the vineyards, the garden with the hanging bench.  
  
If Helena was a normal kind of romantic, she'd invite Dinah there for a week in the summer to drink wine and lay in the afternoon sun.  
  
Instead, she says, "I got trained as an assassin in the country."  
  
Dinah bursts into laughter. Like the rest of her, it's brash and bold and clear and Helena loves it instantly.  
  
"I was thinking more evening drives by the beach and all that shit, but we could get some assassin lessons, too," She grins, leaning back against the bench. She looks up, the smooth chocolate skin of her neck glowing in the erratic lights of the street lamps.  
  
"Sure. Sounds fun," Helena says, and even she knows her dry voice conveys the opposite of what she means but Dinah smiles anyway and rests her arm on the bench behind Helena's shoulders.  
  
Helena pinches her hands between her knees, her mind buzzing as she tries to calculate what to say, what moves to make, and when.  
  
She glances at Dinah.  
  
Her eyes are closed, head tilted up to the thin smattering of stars visible above the skyscrapers. She looks like one of the angel statues on the stairs by St. John's parish.  
  
Helena doesn't say anything.  
  


* * *

  
"Let's grab a beer, yeah? I'll buy," Dinah says.  
  
It's Tuesday, and Helena's supposed to have a job interview the next day but Dinah's eyes are the way they've always been and she can't say no.  
  
Helena hates clubs and so does Dinah so they buy a twelve pack from Sal's and get wasted on Renee's ugly floral-print couch.  
  
"Truth or dare?" Dinah asks.  
  
"Truth," Helena says, because there's nothing to hide anymore.  
  
"You ever kiss a girl?"  
  
"I wish," she says, without thinking. The words tumble from her mouth and she doesn't really care at all.  
  
"Me too," Dinah says, finishing off her beer and laying on the couch, legs draped over Helena's lap. "Fuck, my head..."  
  
Helena leans back on the couch. She stares absently at the ceiling, following a hairline crack with her eyes.  
  
"We could kiss."  
  
Dinah laughs, snorting until she cries and Renee yells for them to shut up.  
  
Helena feels a little ill. But it's probably the beer. She kicks Dinah playfully, joining in the laughter.  
  
"Fuck off," she gasps, between bursts of laughter that taste sour in her chest.  
  


* * *

  
"I've got a gig downtown. Mind giving me a ride?" Dinah asks, propping her leg up against a crate to tug her boots back up. The patent leather glints blue and red in the overhead studio lights.  
  
Helena must have paused too long, because Dinah rolls her eyes fondly and adds, "I'll get you in for free. Maybe even take a request or two?"  
  
Helena blinks once. Twice. She grasps at the words but they slip through her fingers like soap bubbles.  
  
"Yeah! Sure, absolutely. Yes" she chokes out.  
  
The smoggy air makes her eyes water but it's worth it to see Dinah's lips curl in a smirk under the red and gold lights of the club.  
  
Helena's pretty sure she's not gay. But she likes Dinah. But everyone likes Dinah.  
  
She puts her head in her hands and one of the waiters offers her a drink, looking only slightly put off by her leather duster and combat boots and a swanky club.  
  
She would know if she was into Dinah, right? You were supposed to know these things. They seemed so big, too hard to miss. And yet...  
  
"How was I, babe?" Dinah asks, sliding into the stool next to Helena.  
  
"Great! Fine. Good!" she replies.  
  
Dinah raises an eyebrow. The glint of the lights on the bottles behind the bar makes her skin look like mottled gold.  
  
"Great or fine? Which is it?" she chuckles.  
  
"Great. Really. It was great. You want a drink?"  
  
Dinah shakes her head. "Try not to drink on the job," she explains, reaching up to take out one of her loopy golden earrings. "Shit, this one pinches."  
  
"Just wear one. Looks badass," Helena says.  
  
Dinah shrugs, tossing her hair over one shoulder so the gold of the earring and the dark curl of her hair blend together. "Yeah? Hold this one, then."  
  
She flips the other earring to Helena before getting up for her next set. Helena looks down at the earring. It's small in her large palm, glittering the light. She's never been one for earrings. Or dresses. They seemed cumbersome.  
  
She puts the earring in her breast pocket and forgets about it. Dinah doesn't ask for it back. Helena doesn't remember until she's back at her apartment and it stabs her in the collarbone as she collapses in bed.  
  


* * *

  
"Hey, Harley?"  
  
"What?" Harley chirps, bringing her mallet down just shy of Helena's right shoulder. She dives and tucks, rolling across the pavement to safety before turning and wrenching the weapon out of Harley's pale fists, tossing it far away.  
  
"Aw, honey, no fair!" Harley pouts, swinging in with a left hook. Helena ducks and trips her to the ground. Sirens wail in the distance. Harley's stolen cash sits in a duffel bag a few metres away.  
  
"How do you talk to girls?" Helena asks, stepping back as Harley tries to kick at her from the concrete before pushing herself back onto her feet.  
  
"Like you talk to anyone else, I guess!" Harley replies. She darts past Helena and starts to vault up a nearby fire escape, a few bills fluttering down from her duffel bag.  
  
Helena rolls her eyes. "Look, I know you wanna get out of here, but I need your help with this!"  
  
Harley bends backwards so her pigtails hang upside down towards the ground, grinning crookedly. "Just text me!"  
  
"You threw your last phone under a truck because you thought Batman was tracking you," Helena huffs, starting up the fire escape after her.  
  
"Oh! Right. I'll text you, then. When I find a new phone."  
  
Harley disappears onto the roof of the building. By the time Helena gets up there, she's long gone.  
  


* * *

  
_Hiiiiiiiii_  
  
 _Hello, Harley_  
  
 _Still wanna talk to girls?_  
  
 _I think so_  
  
 _Dress up. Buy her nice shit. Eat her out_  
  
 _I think that comes later_  
  
 _Whatever just do it_  
  
Helena groan, setting her phone on her nightstand. Hanging from the hook on her closet is the dress she bought. Black and sleek and everything she tries to avoid. It's a pain in the ass (literally) to tuck all the time.  
  
Dress up. Done.  
  
She does it anyway, and at the next gig she's stuffed the chest of the dress and is wobbling in heels when Dinah walks up, eyes raking over her body.  
  
"Lena. What's with the outfit?" she asks. She's looking away.  
  
Helena's chest, already itching from the tissue paper in her bra, sinks.  
  
"Dunno. Just thought it looked cool," she mumbles.  
  
"Don't get me wrong, you look hot," Dinah laughs. "But also like you wanna die."  
  
She's not wrong.  
  
The feeling becomes mutual when Helena asks her to dance and steps on her toes a dozen times, but she makes it up to her by buying drinks and taking her for ice cream the next day.  
  
Buy her shit. Done.  
  
(Helena's decided to skip step 3 and just repeat the first two ad infinitum.)  
  
A week of her mission goes by. Then two.  
  
They're sparring in the warehouse late on night, the cracks and grunts of activity bouncing off the wooden boxes stacked about.  
  
Dinah skin is slightly shiny with sweat and Helen's throat bobs as she catches her with a left hook to the face.  
  
"Shit!"  
  
Helena lands on her ass, crashing into one of the crates. She feels something hot and her lip and her fingers come back bloody.  
  
"Oh, Jesus," Dinah sighs, kneeling in front of Helena and wiping the blood away from her nose. She stands, pulling Helena to her feet. "Lets just call it quits, yeah? Something's wrong if I can kick your ass like that," she mutters. "You all good?"  
  
"Yeah," Helena lies. She's tired of lying.  
  
"You sure? You can talk to - "  
  
"Would you ever consider...coffee?" Helena blurts out, like the words are red hot on her lips.  
  
Dinah blinks, glancing off to the side for a moment at the boxes. "Like, in general?"  
  
"No! No, I mean, like, with me. Just the two of us. Like a date? Dating. Me. Would you consider it?"  
  
There is a pervasive silence and Helena is running the costs of skipping town and moving to California when Dinah bursts into laughter and one of the warehouse windows cracks.  
  
"Lena, what do you think we've been doing?" she manages to say, and suddenly her hand is in Helena's and their fingers are laced together.  
  
Oh. _Oh_.  
  
"But you didn't...we haven't - "  
  
Dinah laughs again and she's beautiful, a siren.  
  
"I guess I should have spelled it out a little better. I've been taking you on dates for the past _month_ ," she explains. "Got a tip from a source you might be interested."  
  
Helena can see Harley's smug face in her mind's eyes and she shakes her head. "You're fucking with me."  
  
"Let's go right now, then," Dinah challenges. "Coffee."  
  
"It's ten at night."  
  
"Who cares?"  
  
Helena realizes she brings up a good point.  
  


* * *

  
Maybe if they were normal girls they'd go dancing or drive by the mansions on 5th or make out in the Macy's dressing room.  
  
Instead, Helena puts an arrow between a sex traffic ringleader's eyes and they hook up in the alley behind his penthouse.  
  
All in all, it's not so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my girl Jane who saw this with my in theaters before shutdown. We enjoyed Ewan Mcgregor's bad American accent and also the gays.
> 
> Also, alternate take where Zsasz goes to pick up Helena but she's the one you thought was the boy and it just cuts to her as an adult and it's not really brought up, she's trans and that's OKAY


End file.
